Is the Country Coming Apart at the Seams?
Ronald Brownstein has an insightful piece in the National Journal about how the country is coming apart. It is e pluribus unum in reverse. In particular, the Republican base is deeply upset about demographic and cultural changes the country is undergoing and a lot of this anxiety is reflected in the rise of outside candidates who they hope can do the King Canute thing and command the tide to stop.
Immigration and demographics are only part of the picture. Another piece is the tension between black leaders and the police. Black leaders and Democrats in general feel the police are gunning down innocent, unarmed blacks for no reason at all while many Republicans feel it is the police who are under siege.
A third area which societal changes are very unsettling to many Republicans is the attitude toward gays and same-sex marriage. It used to be that gays hid deeply in the closet and it was easy to pretend they didn't exist. Now they are demanding their constitutional and legal rights. much like blacks did in the 1960s. For people who were raised in churches that proclaimed homosexuality is an abomination, this is hard to accept.
All these changes are tearing the fabric of the country apart in ways that will take a very long time to repair. Maybe it won't happen until most of the old people who cling to the past have died off (or at least have Alzheimer's disease).
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